past continuous
grammar terms | grammar dictionary
Grammar Terms
A glossary of English grammatical and linguistic terms, with definitions, explanations and example sentences
Term | Definition |
---|---|
active voice | one of two voices in English; a direct form of expression where the subject performs or “acts” the verb; see also passive voice eg: “Many people eat rice” |
adjective | part of speech that typically describes or “modifies” a noun eg: “It was a big dog.” |
adjective clause | seldom-used term for relative clause |
adjunct | word or phrase that adds information to a sentence and that can be removed from the sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical eg: I met John at school. |
adverb | word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb eg: quickly, really, very |
adverbial clause | dependent clause that acts like an adverb and indicates such things as time, place or reason eg: Although we are getting older, we grow more beautiful each day. |
affirmative | statement that expresses (or claims to express) a truth or “yes” meaning; opposite of negative eg: The sun is hot. |
affix | language unit (morpheme) that occurs before or after (or sometimes within) the root or stem of a word eg: un- in unhappy (prefix), -ness in happiness (suffix) |
agreement (also known as “concord”) |
logical (in a grammatical sense) links between words based on tense, case or number eg: this phone, these phones |
antecedent | word, phrase or clause that is replaced by a pronoun (or other substitute) when mentioned subsequently (in the same sentence or later) eg: “Emily is nice because she brings me flowers.” |
appositive | noun phrase that re-identifies or describes its neighbouring noun eg: “Canada, a multicultural country, is recognized by its maple leaf flag.” |
article | determiner that introduces a noun phrase as definite (the) or indefinite (a/an) |
aspect | feature of some verb forms that relates to duration or completion of time; verbs can have no aspect (simple), or can have continuous or progressive aspect (expressing duration), or have perfect or perfective aspect (expressing completion) |
auxiliary verb (also called “helping verb”) |
verb used with the main verb to help indicate something such as tense or voice eg: I do not like you. She has finished. He can swim. |
bare infinitive | unmarked form of the verb (no indication of tense, mood, person, or aspect) without the particle “to”; typically used after modal auxiliary verbs; see also infinitive eg: “He should come“, “I can swim“ |
base form | basic form of a verb before conjugation into tenses etc eg: be, speak |
case | form of a pronoun based on its relationship to other words in the sentence; case can be subjective, objective or possessive eg: “I love this dog”, “This dog loves me“, “This is my dog” |
causative verb | verb that causes things to happen such as “make”, “get” and “have”; the subject does not perform the action but is indirectly responsible for it eg: “She made me go to school”, “I had my nails painted” |
clause | group of words containing a subject and its verb eg: “It was late when he arrived“ |
comparative, comparative adjective |
form of an adjective or adverb made with “-er” or “more” that is used to show differences or similarities between two things (not three or more things) eg: colder, more quickly |
complement | part of a sentence that completes or adds meaning to the predicate eg: Mary did not say where she was going. |
compound noun | noun that is made up of more than one word; can be one word, or hyphenated, or separated by a space eg: toothbrush, mother-in-law, Christmas Day |
compound sentence | sentence with at least two independent clauses; usually joined by a conjunction eg: “You can have something healthy but you can’t have more junk food.” |
concord | another term for agreement |
conditional | structure in English where one action depends on another (“if-then” or “then-if” structure); most common are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd conditionals eg: “If I win I will be happy”, “I would be happy if I won” |
conjugate | to show the different forms of a verb according to voice, mood, tense, number and person; conjugation is quite simple in English compared to many other languages eg: I walk, you walk, he/she/it walks, we walk, they walk; I walked, you walked, he/she/it walked, we walked, they walked |
conjunction | word that joins or connects two parts of a sentence eg: Ram likes tea and coffee. Anthony went swimming although it was raining. |
content word | word that has meaning in a sentence, such as a verb or noun (as opposed to a structure word, such as pronoun or auxiliary verb); content words are stressed in speech eg: “Could you BRING my GLASSES because I’ve LEFTthem at HOME“ |
continuous (also called “progressive”) |
verb form (specifically an aspect) indicating actions that are in progress or continuing over a given time period (can be past, present or future); formed with “BE” + “VERB-ing” eg: “They are watching TV.” |
contraction | shortening of two (or more) words into one eg: isn’t (is not), we’d’ve (we would have) |
countable noun | thing that you can count, such as apple, pen, tree (see uncountable noun) eg: one apple, three pens, ten trees |
dangling participle | illogical structure that occurs in a sentence when a writer intends to modify one thing but the reader attaches it to another eg: “Running to the bus, the flowers were blooming.” (In the example sentence it seems that the flowers were running.) |
declarative sentence | sentence type typically used to make a statement (as opposed to a question or command) eg: “Tara works hard”, “It wasn’t funny” |
defining relative clause (also called “restrictive relative clause”) |
relative clause that contains information required for the understanding of the sentence; not set off with commas; see also non-defining clause eg: “The boy who was wearing a blue shirt was the winner” |
demonstrative pronoun demonstrative adjective |
pronoun or determiner that indicates closeness to (this/these) or distance from (that/those) the speaker eg: “This is a nice car”, “Can you see those cars?” |
dependent clause | part of a sentence that contains a subject and a verb but does not form a complete thought and cannot stand on its own; see also independent clause eg: “When the water came out of the tap…” |
determiner | word such as an article or a possessive adjective or other adjective that typically comes at the beginning of noun phrases eg: “It was an excellent film”, “Do you like my new shirt?”, “Let’s buy some eggs” |
direct speech | saying what someone said by using their exact words; see also indirect speech eg: “Lucy said: ‘I am tired.'” |
direct object | noun phrase in a sentence that directly receives the action of the verb; see also indirect object eg: “Joey bought the car“, “I like it“, “Can you see the man wearing a pink shirt and waving a gun in the air?” |
embedded question | question that is not in normal question form with a question mark; it occurs within another statement or question and generally follows statement structure eg: “I don’t know where he went,” “Can you tell me where it is before you go?”, “They haven’t decided whether they should come“ |
finite verb | verb form that has a specific tense, number and person eg: I work, he works, we learned, they ran |
first conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used for future actions or events that are seen as realistic possibilities eg: “If we win the lottery we will buy a car” |
fragment | incomplete piece of a sentence used alone as a complete sentence; a fragment does not contain a complete thought; fragments are common in normal speech but unusual (inappropriate) in formal writing eg: “When’s her birthday? – In December“, “Will they come? – Probably not“ |
function | purpose or “job” of a word form or element in a sentence eg: The function of a subject is to perform the action. One function of an adjective is to describe a noun. The function of a noun is to name things. |
future continuous (also called “future progressive”) |
tense* used to describe things that will happen in the future at a particular time; formed with WILL + BE + VERB-ing eg: “I will be graduating in September.” |
future perfect | tense* used to express the past in the future; formed with WILL HAVE + VERB-ed eg: “I will have graduated by then” |
future perfect continuous | tense* used to show that something will be ongoing until a certain time in the future; formed with WILL HAVE BEEN + VERB-ing eg: “We will have been living there for three months by the time the baby is born” |
future simple | tense* used to describe something that hasn’t happened yet such as a prediction or a sudden decision; formed with WILL + BASE VERB eg: “He will be late”, “I will answer the phone” |
genitive case | case expressing relationship between nouns (possession, origin, composition etc) eg: “John’s dog“, “door of the car“, “children’s songs“, “pile of sand“ |
gerund | noun form of a verb, formed with VERB-ing eg: “Walking is great exercise” |
gradable adjective | adjective that can vary in intensity or grade when paired with a grading adverb ; see also non-gradable adjective eg: quite hot, very tall |
grading adverb | adverb that can modify the intensity or grade of a gradable adjective eg: quite hot, very tall |
hanging participle | another term for dangling participle |
helping verb | another term for auxiliary verb |
imperative | form of verb used when giving a command; formed with BASE VERB only eg: “Brush your teeth!” |
indefinite pronoun | pronoun does not refer to any specific person, thing or amount. It is vague and “not definite”. eg: anything, each, many, somebody |
independent clause (also called “main clause”) |
group of words that expresses a complete thought and can stand alone as a sentence; see also dependent clause eg: “Tara is eating curry.“, “Tara likes oranges and Joe likes apples.” |
indirect object | noun phrase representing the person or thing indirectly affected by the action of the verb; see also direct object eg: “She showed me her book collection”, “Joey bought his wife a new car” |
indirect question | another term for embedded question |
indirect speech (also called “reported speech”) |
saying what someone said without using their exact words; see direct speech eg: “Lucy said that she was tired“ |
infinitive | base form of a verb preceded by “to”**; see also bare infinitive eg: “You need to study harder”, “To be, or not to be: that is the question” |
inflection | change in word form to indicate grammatical meaning eg: dog, dogs (two inflections); take, takes, took, taking, taken (five inflections) |
interjection | common word that expresses emotion but has no grammatical value; can often be used alone and is often followed by an exclamation mark eg: “Hi!”, “er”, “Ouch!”, “Dammit!” |
interrogative | (formal) sentence type (typically inverted) normally used when asking a question eg: “Are you eating?”, “What are you eating?” |
interrogative pronoun | pronoun that asks a question. eg: who, whom, which |
intransitive verb | verb that does not take a direct object; see also transitive verb e.g. “He is working hard”, “Where do you live?” |
inversion | any reversal of the normal word order, especially placing the auxiliary verb before the subject; used in a variety of ways, as in question formation, conditional clauses and agreement or disagreement eg: “Where are your keys?”,”Had we watched the weather report, we wouldn’t have gone to the beach”, “So did he”, “Neither did she” |
irregular verb see irregular verbs list |
verb that has a different ending for past tense and past participle forms than the regular “-ed”; see also regular verb eg: buy, bought, bought; do, did, done |
lexicon, lexis | all of the words and word forms in a language with meaning or function |
lexical verb | another term for main verb |
linking verb | verbs that connect the subject to more information (but do not indicate action), such as “be” or “seem” |
main clause | another term for independent clause |
main verb (also called “lexical verb”) |
any verb in a sentence that is not an auxiliary verb; a main verb has meaning on its own eg: “Does John like Mary?”, “I will have arrived by 4pm” |
modal verb (also called “modal”) |
auxiliary verb such as can, could, must, should etc; paired with the bare infinitive of a verb eg: “I should go for a jog” |
modifier | word or phrase that modifies and limits the meaning of another word eg: the house => the white house, the house over there, the house we sold last year |
mood | sentence type that indicates the speaker’s view towards the degree of reality of what is being said, for example subjunctive, indicative, imperative |
morpheme | unit of language with meaning; differs from “word” because some cannot stand alone e.g. un-, predict and –able in unpredictable |
multi-word verb | verb that consists of a basic verb + another word or words (preposition and/or adverb) eg: get up (phrasal verb), believe in (prepositional verb), get on with (phrasal-prepositional verb) |
negative | form which changes a “yes” meaning to a “no” meaning; opposite of affirmative eg: “She will not come”, “I have never seen her” |
nominative case | another term for subjective case |
non-defining relative clause (also called “non-restrictive relative clause”) |
relative clause that adds information but is not completely necessary; set off from the sentence with a comma or commas; see defining relative clause eg: “The boy, who had a chocolate bar in his hand, was still hungry” |
non-gradable adjective | adjective that has a fixed quality or intensity and cannot be paired with a grading adverb; see also gradable adjective eg: freezing, boiling, dead |
non-restrictive relative clause | another term for non-defining relative clause |
noun | part of speech that names a person, place, thing, quality, quantity or concept; see also proper noun and compound noun eg: “The man is waiting”, “I was born in London“, “Is that your car?”, “Do you like music?” |
noun clause | clause that takes the place of a noun and cannot stand on its own; often introduced with words such as “that, who or whoever” eg: “What the president said was surprising” |
noun phrase (NP) | any word or group of words based on a noun or pronoun that can function in a sentence as a subject, object or prepositional object; can be one word or many words; can be very simple or very complex eg: “She is nice”, “When is the meeting?”, “The car over there beside the lampost is mine” |
number | change of word form indicating one person or thing (singular) or more than one person or thing (plural) eg: one dog/three dogs, she/they |
object | thing or person affected by the verb; see also direct object and indirect object eg: “The boy kicked the ball“, “We chose the house with the red door“ |
objective case | case form of a pronoun indicating an object eg: “John married her“, “I gave it to him“ |
part of speech | one of the classes into which words are divided according to their function in a sentence eg: verb, noun, adjective |
participle | verb form that can be used as an adjective or a noun; see past participle, present participle |
passive voice | one of two voices in English; an indirect form of expression in which the subject receives the action; see also active voice eg: “Rice is eaten by many people” |
past tense (also called “simple past”) |
tense used to talk about an action, event or situation that occurred and was completed in the past eg: “I lived in Paris for 10 years”, “Yesterday we saw a snake” |
past continuous | tense often used to describe an interrupted action in the past; formed with WAS/WERE + VERB-ing eg: “I was reading when you called” |
past perfect | tense that refers to the past in the past; formed with HAD + VERB-ed eg: “We had stopped the car” |
past perfect continuous | tense that refers to action that happened in the past and continued to a certain point in the past; formed with HAD BEEN + VERB-ing eg: “I had been waiting for three hours when he arrived” |
past participle | verb form (V3) – usually made by adding “-ed” to the base verb – typically used in perfect and passive tenses, and sometimes as an adjective eg: “I have finished“, “It was seen by many people”, “boiled eggs” |
perfect | verb form (specifically an aspect); formed with HAVE/HAS + VERB-ed (present perfect) or HAD + VERB-ed (past perfect) |
person | grammatical category that identifies people in a conversation; there are three persons: 1st person (pronouns I/me, we/us) is the speaker(s), 2nd person (pronoun you) is the listener(s), 3rd person (pronouns he/him, she/her, it, they/them) is everybody or everything else |
personal pronoun | pronoun that indicates person eg: “He likes my dogs”, “They like him“ |
phrasal verb | multi-word verb formed with a verb + adverb eg: break up, turn off (see phrasal verbs list) NB: many people and books call all multi-word verbs “phrasal verbs” (see multi-word verbs) |
phrase | two or more words that have a single function and form part of a sentence; phrases can be noun, adjective, adverb, verb or prepositional |
plural | of a noun or form indicating more than one person or thing; plural nouns are usually formed by adding “-s”; see also singular, number eg: bananas, spoons, trees |
position | grammatically correct placement of a word form in a phrase or sentence in relation to other word forms eg: “The correct position for an article is at the beginning of the noun phrase that it describes” |
positive | basic state of an adjective or adverb when it shows quality but not comparative or superlative eg: nice, kind, quickly |
possessive adjective | adjective (also called “determiner”) based on a pronoun: my, your, his, her, its, our, their eg: “I lost my keys”, “She likes your car” |
possessive case | case form of a pronoun indicating ownership or possession eg: “Mine are blue”, “This car is hers“ |
possessive pronoun | pronoun that indicates ownership or possession eg: “Where is mine?”, “These are yours“ |
predicate | one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the predicate is the part that is not the subject eg: “My brother is a doctor“, “Who did you call?”, “The woman wearing a blue dress helped me“ |
prefix | affix that occurs before the root or stem of a word eg: impossible, reload |
preposition | part of speech that typically comes before a noun phrase and shows some type of relationship between that noun phrase and another element (including relationships of time, location, purpose etc) eg: “We sleep at night”, “I live in London”, “This is fordigging” |
prepositional verb | multi-word verb that is formed with verb + preposition eg: believe in, look after |
present participle | -ing form of a verb (except when it is a gerund or verbal noun) eg: “We were eating“, “The man shouting at the back is rude”, “I saw Tara playing tennis” |
present simple (also called “simple present”) | tense usually used to describe states and actions that are general, habitual or (with the verb “to be”) true right now; formed with the basic verb (+ s for 3rd person singular) eg: “Canada sounds beautiful”, “She walks to school”, “I am very happy” |
present continuous(also called “present progressive”) | tense used to describe action that is in process now, or a plan for the future; formed with BE + VERB-ing eg: “We are watching TV”, “I am moving to Canada next month” |
present perfect | tense that connects the past and the present, typically used to express experience, change or a continuing situation; formed with HAVE + VERB-ed eg: “I have worked there”, “John has broken his leg”, “How long have you been in Canada?” |
present perfect continuous | tense used to describe an action that has recently stopped or an action continuing up to now; formed with HAVE + BEEN + VERB-ing eg: “I’m tired because I‘ve been running“, “He has been living in Canada for two years” |
progressive | another term for continuous |
pronoun | word that replaces a noun or noun phrase; there are several types including personal pronouns, relative pronouns and indefinite pronouns eg: you, he, him; who, which; somebody, anything |
proper noun | noun that is capitalized at all times and is the name of a person, place or thing eg: Shakespeare, Tokyo, EnglishClub.com |
punctuation | standard marks such as commas, periods and question marks within a sentence eg: , . ? ! – ; : |
quantifier | determiner or pronoun that indicates quantity eg: some, many, all |
question tag | final part of a tag question; mini-question at end of a tag question eg: “Snow isn’t black, is it?” |
question word | another term for WH-word |
reciprocal pronoun | pronoun that indicates that two or more subjects are acting mutually; there are two in English – each other, one another eg: “John and Mary were shouting at each other“, “The students accused one another of cheating” |
reduced relative clause (also called “participial relative clause”) |
construction similar to a relative clause, but containing a participle instead of a finite verb; this construction is possible only under certain circumstances eg: “The woman sitting on the bench is my sister”, “The people arrested by the police have been released” |
reflexive pronoun | pronoun ending in -self or -selves, used when the subject and object are the same, or when the subject needs emphasis eg: “She drove herself“, “I’ll phone her myself“ |
regular verb see regular verbs list |
verb that has “-ed” as the ending for past tense and past participle forms; see also irregular verb eg: work, worked, worked |
relative adverb | adverb that introduces a relative clause; there are four in English: where, when, wherever, whenever; see also relative pronoun |
relative clause | dependent clause that usually starts with a relative pronounsuch as who or which, or relative adverb such as where eg: “The person who finishes first can leave early” (defining), “Texas, where my brother lives, is big” (non-defining) |
relative pronoun | pronoun that starts a relative clause; there are five in English: who, whom, whose, which, that; see also relative adverb |
reported speech | another term for indirect speech |
restrictive relative clause | another term for defining relative clause |
second conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used to talk about an unlikely possibility in the future eg: “If we won the lottery we would buy a car” |
sentence | largest grammatical unit; a sentence must always include a subject (except for imperatives) and predicate; a written sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop/period (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!); a sentence contains a complete thought such as a statement, question, request or command eg: “Stop!”, “Do you like coffee?”, “I work.” |
series | list of items in a sentence eg: “The children ate popsicles, popcorn and chips“ |
singular | of a noun or form indicating exactly one person or thing; singular nouns are usually the simplest form of the noun (as found in a dictionary); see also plural, number eg: banana, spoon, tree |
split infinitive | situation where a word or phrase comes between the particle “to” and the verb in an infinitive; considered poor construction by some eg: “He promised to never lie again” |
Standard English (S.E.) | “normal” spelling, pronunciation and grammar that is used by educated native speakers of English |
structure word | word that has no real meaning in a sentence, such as a pronoun or auxiliary verb (as opposed to a content word, such as verb or noun); structure words are not normally stressed in speech eg: “Could you BRING my GLASSES because I’ve LEFT them at HOME” |
subject | one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the subject is the part that is not the predicate; typically, the subject is the first noun phrase in a sentence and is what the rest of the sentence “is about” eg: “The rain water was dirty”, “Mary is beautiful”, “Whosaw you?” |
subjective case also called “nominative” |
case form of a pronoun indicating a subject eg: Did she tell you about her? |
subjunctive | fairly rare verb form typically used to talk about events that are not certain to happen, usually something that someone wants, hopes or imagines will happen; formed with BARE INFINITIVE (except past of “be”) eg: “The President requests that John attend the meeting” |
subordinate clause | another term for dependent clause |
suffix | affix that occurs after the root or stem of a word eg: happiness, quickly |
superlative, superlative adjective | adjective or adverb that describes the extreme degree of something eg: happiest, most quickly |
SVO | subject-verb-object; a common word order where the subject is followed by the verb and then the object eg: “The man crossed the street” |
syntax | sentence structure; the rules about sentence structure |
tag question | special construction with statement that ends in a mini-question; the whole sentence is a tag question; the mini-question is a question tag; usually used to obtain confirmation eg: “The Earth is round, isn’t it?”, “You don’t eat meat, do you?” |
tense | form of a verb that shows us when the action or state happens (past, present or future). Note that the name of a tense is not always a guide to when the action happens. The “present continuous tense”, for example, can be used to talk about the present or the future. |
third conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used to talk about a possible event in the past that did not happen (and is therefore now impossible) eg: “If we had won the lottery we would have bought a car” |
transitive verb | action verb that has a direct object (receiver of the action); see also intransitive verb eg: “The kids always eat a snack while they watch TV” |
uncountable nouns (also called “mass nouns” or “non-count”) |
thing that you cannot count, such as substances or concepts; see also countable nouns eg: water, furniture, music |
usage | way in which words and constructions are normally used in any particular language |
V1, V2, V3 | referring to Verb 1, Verb 2, Verb 3 – being the base, past and past participle that students typically learn for irregular verbs eg: speak, spoke, spoken |
verb | word that describes the subject’s action or state and that we can change or conjugate based on tense and person eg: (to) work, (to) love, (to) begin |
voice | form of a verb that shows the relation of the subject to the action; there are two voices in English: active, passive |
WH-question | question using a WH-word and expecting an answer that is not “yes” or “no”; WH-questions are “open” questions; see also yes-no question eg: Where are you going? |
WH-word (also called “question word”) |
word that asks a WH-question; there are 7 WH-words: who, what, where, when, which, why, how |
word order | order or sequence in which words occur within a sentence; basic word order for English is subject-verb-object or SVO |
yes-no question | question to which the answer is yes or no; yes-no questions are “closed” questions; see also WH-question eg: “Do you like coffee?” |
zero conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used when the result of the condition is always true (based on fact) eg: “If you dial O, the operator comes on” |
* note that technically English does not have a real future tense
** some authorities consider the base form of the verb without “to” to be the true infinitive
grammar properties & grammatical reasons | word agreement | quiz
Grammatical Category Quiz
You can do this grammar quiz online or print it on paper. It tests what you learned on the Grammatical Category post on this platform.
1. Grammatical category is related to
2. Only _____ can be affected by the grammatical category known as “number”.
3. Possessive is a value of the grammatical category called
4. Modern English uses _____ gender.
5. The grammatical category “person” is a property of pronouns and has _____ values.
6. “Tense” is a grammatical category that applies to
7. Continuous and perfect are examples of the grammatical category known as
8. The subjunctive “mood” expresses __________ .
9. “Voice” is a grammatical category affecting
10. _________ can be affected by the grammatical category known as “degree”.
grammar properties & grammatical reasons | word agreement | answer key
answer key
1. word agreement
2. nouns
3. case
4. natural
5. three
6. verbs
7. aspect
8. something desired
9. transitive verbs
10. gradable adverbs
how much have you learnt about tenses ? take this quiz ! | grammar
What is Tense? Quiz
You can do this grammar quiz online by writing your answers on a sheet or paper or print the quiz on paper. It tests what you learned on the twelve tenses, aspect and mood and the easy grammar series | what is tense? posts on this platform.
1. In English, tense is a _______ method used to indicate the time of an action or state.
2. If we talk about something that’s happening now, and then talk about something that’s already happened, we usually use
3. Using a system of verb-based tenses is _______ to indicate the time of an action or state.
4. Two important components of many English tenses are
5. Which aspect describes an action that’s still happening or not yet completed?
6. Which of these is perfective in aspect?
7. The progressive aspect produces progressive or “_______” tenses.
8. The perfective aspect produces _______ tenses.
9. Tenses that combine the two aspects are called _______ tenses.
10. “Who are we still waiting for?” Which tense do you think this is?
how much have you learnt about tenses ? take this quiz ! | grammar | answer key
answer key
1. verb-based
2. different tenses
3. not the only way
4. time and aspect
5. the progressive aspect
6. has spoken
7. continuous
8. perfect
9. perfect continuous
10. present continuous
easy English grammar | 12 tenses, aspect & mood | ESL & ELT
Which are the 12 tenses in English ?
Verbs: actions, 1 of the 9 parts of Speech (nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections and articles)
Tenses: past and present (future)
Aspect: simple, continuous (progressive), perfect, perfect continuous (progressive)
All Tenses/12 English Tenses with examples. In this video, we will begin our journey through the 12 tenses of the English language!
You will still need to practice each tense individually, but this video will be a good reminder or refresher before a test.
“Today we are going to talk about all 12 English verb tenses. Now I will not go into detail about every tense, so you still need to study all of the tenses. But if you have an exam coming up, or if you just need a quick reminder of what to think of when you are thinking of past perfect progressive or whatever, this is a good place to refresh your memory and think about things again.
Let’s start with the most important tense, present tense, that’s usually the first one that you learn when you learn English, and we’ll move to Future, which is not as common as present or past.
Present Simple. “I eat pizza everyday.” When we talk about present simple, we are talking about a routine, something that you do often, something that you never do, something that you always do. As you can see, I say “everyday”. So, “Everyday I eat pizza.” Now we make the present simple by using the subject, plus the first form of the verb, and then the object. And remember, with this form of the verb, he/she/it gets an ‘s’ at the end of the verb. So for example: “She eats pizza everyday.”
Present Progressive (Present Continuous). When we talk about present progressive, we are talking about what is happening right now, or we are talking about an action that is not complete. “I am eating pizza now.” Am I finished eating pizza? No, I am still eating right now. It’s very important when you use present progressive to remember this verb “be”. So we make this by using the subject plus “am/is/are” plus the verb, plus “-ing”, plus the object. And remember, the best way to think of this is an action that is not finished.
Present Perfect. “I have eaten all of the pizza.”. The action is complete. The pizza is gone. I ate all of it. Do you see any time words here? No. We are talking about now. You make the present perfect by using the subject plus have or has if it is he/she/it we use has plus the third form of the verb plus the object. Remember the third form of the verb, some people call that the past participle, I just call it verb three or third verb.
Present perfect progressive (Present Perfect Continuous) “I have been eating pizza for two hours.” An action starts in the past, and continues until now. And with progressive, it is still happening, the action is not finished. I have been eating pizza for two hours. Am I still eating pizza? Yes. I have been eating pizza for two hours and I still am eating pizza. So we make this by using the subject plus have or has, he/she/it has, plus been, we always use been for this, plus the verb ing, plus the object.
Alright now we are going to talk about the past tenses. The easiest one?
Past simple. Also probably one of the more important tenses in English to learn. When we talk about past simple, I always think of two things: a finished action and finished time. “I ate pizza yesterday.” Is the action finished? Yes. Am I eating pizza now? No. Is the time finished? Yes. Yesterday is complete it is finished. And we make past simple by using the subject plus the second form of the verb or the verb two as I call it also, plus an object.
Past progressive. “I was eating pizza when you arrived.” When we talk about the past progressive, we are probably talking about two actions, not always, but very often. One action is not complete in the past, it’s not complete at a certain moment. Another action is complete and interrupts the other action. So if you look at the sentence, what verb what action happens first? Was eating. First I was eating. Was I finished eating? No. And then you arrived and you interrupted me eating my pizza. So this is always the action that is not finished in the past. We make this by taking the subject plus was or were, was for singular things and were for plural subjects, plus the verb ing, plus object.
Past Perfect. “I had eaten all of the pizza when you arrived.” The first action is complete, it is completely finished before the second action happens. With past perfect you are always going to have two actions. And this first one is complete. It’s subject plus had plus verb three or the past participle, plus object.
Finally, Past Perfect Progressive. “I had been eating pizza for two hours when you arrived. “ We are talking about a complete action that happened before a second action. That’s the -ing right there. And we make this by taking the subject plus had plus verb plus -ing plus object.
“Whats up guys, it’s me again. And this is part two of all twelve English tenses. So today we are talking about the future tenses.
And I want to say one thing. Many of my students remind me that you can also say “going to (future)” instead of “will” when you are talking about the future, and that is true.
But today I’m not going to use, I “am going to”, I am just going to say “I will” just to keep the examples a little bit more simple. But do remember that English speakers also say “am going to do something” to talk about the future.
First Tense: Future Simple.
This is the really easy one we use to talk about plans, things we will do in the future, tomorrow, next week, in two hours, next year. It’s pretty easy: “I will eat pizza tomorrow”. You just need the subject plus the verb “will” plus the first form of the verb, the basic form of the verb, plus the object.
The nice thing about the future tenses is that they don’t change if your subject changes. “He will eat/she will eat/ they will eat”, it’s all the same. So it’s really easy with the grammar.
Next is the future progressive. And remember just like the other progressive tenses, I said that the action is not complete. So here, the action will not be complete when the other action happens. Kind of like past progressive if you remember that in the first part. So the example: “I will be eating pizza when you arrive.” Now when I say “when you arrive”, will I be finished eating? No I will still be eating the pizza when you arrive and interrupt me.
It’s very similar to past progressive except in the future and not in the past. So it’s subject, plus will, plus be, plus verb ‘ing’ plus object.
The next two tenses are definitely the least commonly used ones in English. They are not really all that popular. You might read them in a book, you might hear your English teacher use them or something like that, but most people don’t use them everyday.
I think English speakers will probably understand it, it’s not like it’s really complex. It’s just not common it’s not really useful.
So first, remember what I said about other perfect tenses is that they use two different times or two different actions. And with future perfect we have two actions here: arrive and will have happened. When I talk about future perfect, I’m talking about an action that will be completed before another action. So read this sentence: I will have eaten all of the pizza by the time you arrive.
This word ‘by’ is something that you hear a lot in the future perfect. By 6:00, by next Tuesday, by next year. Right? If you look at it, it’s subject, plus will, plus have, plus Verb 3 plus object. And remember this is a completed action before another action in the future.
Future perfect progressive is very very similar, and if you learn and you master this tense, then you are very good at speaking English, so… good job. Alright let’s read the example first: I will have been eating pizza for two hours when you arrive. Now the main difference here is you see “for two hours”.
Over here you don’t know “How long?” This helps you understand how long something is happening in the future. So “will have been eating pizza”. Am I finished eating pizza when you arrive? No, I will still be eating pizza and I have been eating pizza for two hours. So we use subject, plus will, plus have, plus been, verb ‘ing’, plus the object.
Alright guys if you liked this video please hit like. Have a good day! Thanks!”
12 Verb Tenses in English
Learn all (12) tenses in English with useful grammar rules, examples and ESL worksheets.
easy English grammar | verb tenses | Past Continuous | ESL & ELT
Past Continuous Tense
The Past Continuous is used to describe actions that began in the past and often continued (are in progress) for a short period of time after the action started.
The Past Continuous emphasizes the duration of the action (actions in progress or development), generally implying longer actions than the ones in Simple Past.
The structure of the Past Continuous Tense is:
Was/were + V-ing (Present Participle)
Example: At three o’clock yesterday, I was working in the garden.
How to Use the Past Continuous Tense
The Past Continuous is used:
To describe Parallel or Simultaneous Actions
The Past Progressive is often used to denote an action that was interrupted by an event, or for two actions taking place in parallel (simultaneously).
Examples: While you were washing the dishes, Sue was walking the dog.
To express specific Time as an Interruption
Example: While I was washing the dishes (long action), I heard a loud noise (short action).
To describe what someone was doing at a particular point in time
Example: I was working in the garden all day yesterday.
That could also be expressed using the simple past, as I worked…, which implies that the action is viewed as a unitary event (although the effective meaning is not very different).
To express interrupted Action in the Past
Often the Past Progressive (longer action) is mixed with the Past Simple (shorter action) to show what was happening when something happened.
Examples: I was driving to work when I crashed my car.
I watched a movie while I was flying to Dubai.
To describe repetition and irritation
Example: He was always complaining in class.
Note For stative verbs that do not use the progressive aspect, the simple past is used instead.
Example: At three o’clock yesterday we were in the garden.
Time Expressions Used with the Past Progressive Tense
- When
- While
- Always
- Constantly
- At that time
- In those days
- All day
- All the evening
- For hours…
Past Progressive Tense Charts | Picture
Verb tenses in English, how many are there ? | ELT & ESL tasks
How many different verb tenses are there in a language like English? At first, the answer seems obvious — there’s past, present, and future. But it isn’t quite that simple. Anna Ananichuk explains how thanks to something called grammatical aspect, each of those time periods actually divides further.
Task 1. Comprehension. Watch the video and answer these questions:
1- Perfect aspect in English is mostly used to describe actions that:
2- Continuous (Progressive) aspect in English is mostly used to describe actions that:
3- How many tense-aspect forms are there in English?
4- In the sentence “They were sleeping when the creature attacked the boat,” we use the Past Continuous form “were sleeping” to show that the heroes:
5- In the sentence “They had been sailing for three weeks when the attack happened,” the verb “to sail” has which tense-aspect form?
6- When we use reported speech to talk about what other people told us in the past, we tend to change Past Simple verbs to Past Perfect. For example: “I saw Laura yesterday,” he told me vs. He told me he had seen Laura the day before. How would you explain that?
7- Share a sentence that would be difficult to translate to a language with only Future/Non-Future distinction. What extra words might you use to make the meaning clear?
8- Do you think the way we speak about time in our mother-tongue influences the way we experience time? Why or why not?
While the categories of tense and aspect are commonly thought of as verb properties, there are examples of nominal (meaning noun) tenses. In languages like Guarani, widely spoken in South Africa, or Tundra Nenets, used in Siberia, Russia, nouns have suffixes that give them past or future meaning. For example, ‘a broken vase’ is vase + past tense modifier, literally “what used to be a vase”, a ‘law student’ is lawyer + future tense suffix, and tea is nothing more than past tense leaves.
Another wonderful verbal category closely related to tense is evidentiality, or indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement. In English we usually specify the source of information using special words (“reportedly”) or phrases (“from what he told me”). However, other languages have whole systems of adverbial suffixes meant to show where the knowledge came from. For example, the Bulgarian language has a four-term system of evidentials: witness (“I know because I saw it”), inferential (“I assume so because there is evidence”), renarrative (“I know because I’ve been told”) and dubitative (“I have heard about it, but I doubt it”). That means you can say ‘The cat ate the fish’ and by adding a couple of letters to the word ‘ate’ you will show how you got this information. To learn more about how languages across the world are similar and how they are different you can browse the World Atlas of Language Structures.
The idea that the language you speak determines the way you think is known as linguistic determinism, or Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. You might recognize it from the recent Hollywood film “Arrival” where by learning the alien language in which the concept of time doesn’t exist at all the heroine was able to recall her own future. This hypothesis is not supported by most linguists and it is widely accepted that thought is not the same as language, all of which is brilliantly explained in a popular lecture by one of the world’s most influential linguists Steven Pinker. However, it stands to reason that language does affect the way our cognitive abilities develop – learn more about it by watching a talk at UC San Diego. To dig a bit deeper into how language is acquired in watch at this TED talk about the linguistic genius of babies
If you are a student of English and would like to see more English grammar explained through sketches, you can watch videos by this author here.
Task 3. Discussion, Writing & Speaking.
comment 1: I think that the Bulgarian language has a great way to comunicate which involves the usage of suffixes to add information to the verbs. They show how they get the information. I think that is very useful.
In Espanish language we have the same tenses structure with the difference that we conjugate the verbs according to the person who is doing the action (I, you, he or she, we, you and they)
I think Espanish language has evolved to be clear and simple in order to comunicate the ideas successfully.
comment 2: the grammatical time helps us all to situate the actions and the echos, the verb is the action that changes according to the time that is being seen, in the language of English there are also 3 times, past, present and future, however these they are divided into aspects or subtypes that help us specify the moment, I am more complicated about past and present times, I think I understand the future better.
comment 3: I think grammar time helps us all to situate actions and times, the verb is the action that changes according to the time that is being viewed. In the Spanish language we have the same structure of times with the difference that we conjugate the verbs according to the person who is doing the action in the English language there are also 3 times, past, present and future, however they are divided into aspects or subtypes that help us specify the right time or place to write or speak them.
comment 4: The Italian language has evolved not just because we live in modern times therefore we do not use informal language like many years ago. For example when we spoke to our parents we had to say ‘VOI’ and not ‘YOU’ as this was disrespectful. Now we use ‘LEI’ when we speak to older people or people we do not know. The remote past is not really used anymore in Northern Italy but more in the south of Italy. The language due to technology is changing as we communicate with all of the world.
comment 5: In fact, I think my language, Brazilian portuguese, should represent more the speakers if it were more connected with our culture. Our country was colonized by Portugal more than 500 years ago and the language is one of our heritages. But it doens’t represent very well our cultural differences, our accents, our way of living. I believe that if Brazilian portuguese were less complex and formal, it would be more connected with the speakers.
Past Simple or Past Continuous? ESL: tenses – from pre-intermediate to advanced levels.
The past simple
We use the past simple to talk about complete events that happened in the past:
I’m very happy because yesterday Julia telephoned me and said she loved me.
Remember if we say ‘when’ something happened, we must use the past simple.
The present perfect
We use the present perfect to talk about something that began in the past but is still true now:
I’ve known Julia for 3 years.
And when we are interested in the fact, not the moment when it happened:
We’ve decided to get married.
The present perfect simple also acts as a bridge between the past and the present:
Have you ever fallen in love?
Here, we are talking about times in a person’s whole life.
The Present Perfect Continuous
We use the present perfect continuous to talk about an activity repeated many times up to now.
We’ve been discussing the wedding all week.
And to emphasise an action:
Julia’s mother has been following our discussions with interest.
If we say ‘she has followed …’, she is more interested in the result of the discussions.